The 10 Things You Should Do On LinkedIn Each And Every Week

After speaking at a recent blogger event where 80% of the room was hardly leveraging LinkedIn at all, I thought I’d share the 10 things I do on LinkedIn each and every week as inspiration for others to do more on this powerful professional networking platform. If you start doing even just a few of these things, I’m certain you’ll see some new (and welcome) outreach as well as activity on LinkedIn. BTW, over the course of any given week, these 10 things take up no more than an hour of my time.

Update my status on my profile with either news about a connection or an upcoming speaking engagement I have.

Share something worthy that a connection has posted.

Review my main stream and Like or Comment on things my network has shared.

Review who’s looking at my profile and see if there is anyone I want to connect with on the list. Remember, though, if you don’t have an upgraded account, you need to be willing to let others see that you’ve viewed their profile as shown here via Settings (click to enlarge): BTW, I once had an upgrade through a prior job and didn’t really see any value in it as long as you check it every few days, which I do.

Sandy Jones-Kaminski is the Chief Connecting Officer of Bella Domain Media which produces engaging and share-worthy content for events, social media and integrated marketing that drives new business. She's also the author of I'm at a Networking Event--Now What???, the #1 pick on the Inc.com 2010 Business Book Wish... View full profile ›

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Comments: 40

Spoken like somebody who’s living depends on social media. You can really tell who’s invested in SM and who doesn’t really care. Those who really care run around shout about how important it is, and everybody else just ignores them. Social media will not produce any ROI to any business and I challenge and SM expert to prove me wrong (hint I am not afraid of being proven wrong). I tried all the linked in tricks they tell you to ry in promoting yourself for a job search…not one worked. This is where the SM people say it’s either my SM strategy or the quality of my network but I dont know anyone else who has gotten a job via social networking either…other than social media experts. The truth is SM is a VERY small part of marketing nothing more, dont let them fool you into believing anything else.

Hi Rob, fortunately my living doesn’t depend on social media at all. It’s just another piece of my marketing toolkit and whether you’re using it for biz or career, like many things, it all depends on your specific goals and what you put into it. I’ve been lucky in that my social media/networking activities have resulting in press interview requests and paid speaking offers, so it’s definitely proven valuable to me.

As a technical recruiter, I use LinkedIn daily for finding qualified engineers. Most of my hires come directly from LinkedIn. I find people based on their job titles and keywords. Make sure your account is descriptive. Make sure your profile is viewable to the public. This is one of the biggest reasons you may not have people coming after you. If you aren’t searchable, then you won’t be found!

Hi Rob, SM is a long-term game. I have been at it for years and have built a substantial list of clients and potential clients. At an estimate, I would say that about 50% of my revenue comes through SM, particularly Facebook (believe it or not) and Linked In. As well, my business is an educational consultancy, not a business that many would associate with SM success!

Hi Rob, I tried to see your LinkedIn page to see how you presented your self to the business world but couldn’t look at it. Maybe that is part of your problem. My daughter has found the past two jobs through LinkedIn recruiters. My son-in-law markets his business successfully on LinkedIn site, and keeps up with his connections in the industry.

Great tips Sandy. Maybe not every week for me, but definitely helpful. In 2013 1/2 of my eLearning service revenue was the direct result of keywords on LinkedIN. I was told by my client that I must be doing something right with SM.

Great tips Sandy! I think Linkedin is often overlooked as the least “flashy” social media site. However, for B2B or really any business connection, it is invaluable. I follow at least 8 of your tips faithfully, while also regularly posting original content to the home page and my groups. I need to work on keeping my profile updated! I will be sharing your article for sure!

Sandy, your comments are succinct and helpful. May I note a couple of benefits we derive from following your suggestions? We get smarter [from the additional reading]; we appear smarter [to those who read our comments]; our writing and critical-thinking skills improve with the weekly discipline of commenting and contributing. I like the pay-off. I’m going to share this with my clients. Thanks!

@Rob. I am sorry am hasn’t worked out for you but I can tell you it has been very lucrative to me and I am not even as active as I would like to be. Like anything else in life your attitude determines your altitute. @Sandy thank you for sharing, just last week I decided after several inbox request for my services. I really need to be more active on this platform.

Great reminders Sandy. The resources of Linkedin are so massive; to not get a “GPS” through it from time to time is to have a can of food and starving for lack of a can opener. It would be terrible to starve for connections, contact, and others benefits of Linkedin for the wrong reasons!! Great write up Sandy.

loved the article. I think that you should always thank the endorser. And truly collaborate the efforts. What I have found is there are people who do not give you enough info on linked in and you want to help them or advise how to connect with you but you can only do that by accepting them in linked in then blocking. Has anyone experienced this and have advice? thank you.

@victoria Thank you for your comment and question. If someone invites you to connect on LinkedIn, and haven’t bothered to personalize the intro with something more than a “we’re in the same group” type of message, you CAN reply to them without accepting the invite. There is a pulldown that says “Reply without accepting.” I’ll explain this further in an upcoming blog post I’m working on for my site, belladomain.com, so feel free to sign up there to receive the post.

Susan thanx so much for your input. It was like a LinkedIn pep talk. I’ll try to post about my skincare business & how it benefits your skin.Instead of just reading post of others, even tho my connections have put out some very interesting thoughts and ideas. Thanx again! Warm regards, Mary Lou

My LinkedIn weekly tasks always start on a Sunday. Every Sunday I will post a nicely compiled series of images of the events and structures we are using. I always post firstly to Public + Twitter and then share with my contacts. Why Sunday? Well the number of posts on a Sunday are greatly reduced giving my posts more ‘hang time’ on peoples feeds. They are often sitting in peoples feeds on Monday morning too. Also I target a number of clients across the UAE and Sunday still is quite a busy working day in this region. Through the remainder of the week I will visit my groups and comment / contribute as much as I can. I make it target to add at least 10 new contacts per week. The new contacts are easily gained by clicking on the see more at the bottom of the ‘People You may know Box at the top right of the home page. Here you will see a never ending list of 2nd degree potentials. Having already got a few contacts in common with these prospects gaining anew contact here is quite easy. Always use a personal not when making the request too. (we all like the personal touch).

Thank You… I have been attempting to tell everyone I know they need to be on LinkedIn. As far as I’m concerned if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile you’re never going to get a real job… most people check you out on the web these days and LinkedIn seems to be the premier place to look for quality applicants. You are the Suze Orman of LinkedIn!

Great artilce and useful tips.Really, LinkedIn is a powerful professional networking platform, I am learning more, knowing more and understanding more with vast information and knowledge and ofcourse connecting with new contacts. kind regards to you

Great post. Like any tool LinkedIn is not a magic wand, but I do think that if you use it (and the trick here is actually getting on and doing something)it can bring lots of benefit. I’ve known people to get jobs and business related opportunities from LinkedIn. The HR people in my organization swear by it.